


Who was the winner, to forget so easily?

by korik



Series: A Dissertation in Memories [12]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Coping, Drinking, F/M, Fluff, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 15:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1947129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/korik/pseuds/korik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The usual place they wax poetic at, in between the assignments and flash freezing, the memories more like the snow on a hot pavement.<br/>Why is it, indeed, that whomever won the war forgets the fastest?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who was the winner, to forget so easily?

"How about a friend?"

Such candor, with a smile to crookedly break his cool facade, but his eyes burn, and she wonders if this is the time to feel something. "I think you’re in the wrong business then, comrade."

He tosses his head back with its wild mane, silvery fingers clutching the warped glass of vodka (probably that ‘depression’ era glass from the United States), and laughs.

She flinches but realizes too late it isn’t malicious or mocking. Almost sad, the desperate attempts of a man who feels death breathing down his neck.

Sympathetically, she shudders, her gaze snapping to her own glass , a more modern piece and adventure into minimalism.

She’s not sure if it’s out of shame, or if it’s all an act. How can she be a friend to anyone when to look upon the smoky surface of her own vodka stained drink leaves her with the impression she is staring into an abyss, a…a black hole? Maybe then that Stephen Hawking guy would have live data to play with.

What does she have to offer?

Her eyes return to his face as his warm hand settles on her shoulder, familiar, but distant, like creating a wall of defense where she for a while can call it home, or at the very least shelter with no beginning rent.

"I think i’d be willing to try."

The edges of his mouth pinch like he is swallowing glass, glass every day they pretend does not exist, waiting for the command to part his lips and swallow more.

He better not trust her, she can’t trust herself when she doesn’t have a face -

"Thanks, that’s - that’s the best news I’ve had all year."

Ah. “I’m sorry for that.” His mind, his thoughts, he must be feeling them running away from himself, fragments of fragments becoming slivers of pain that embed into the softest skin in your throat, make it hard to talk, to think.

He makes her nervous, and her words come out again in a softer whisper, fingers clenching around her glass. “I’m sorry.”

He should never believe her, never believe she is awkward, scared, undone in seconds when he is honest.

Open. A book to be read and perused late at night and to have its own bookmark. A book that you whisper secrets to, and stain its old pages with tears, and wonder at who wrote on the margins and inside covers while half of the novel is sealed with fragile wax. A book that has the impression of kisses and teeth along its insides, and a whiff of cologne attached to the one page near the back where there is the stain of dried flowers, long gone.

"Another?"

Her fingers detangle her hair, and she downs the rest of the drink. She tastes fire and ash, and her feet remember the sharp sting of glass.

She has no book, just a measly collection of notes that have begun to rot, the author having given up years ago. "Yeah, but I’m buying."


End file.
